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Okay, guys, I'm gonna hijack Katorone's original post here. The original content has been moved to the upper half of the next post down. ~Talvieno

Limit Theory Fan ContestHall of Fame

To get inducted for a particular contest, one of the following must be true:
A. You have the highest score
B. You are within 6.25% of the highest score*
Lengthy entries will be truncated to the nearest sentence over 250 words.*(winner * 0.9375) (reason: a score of 80 (average highest) will pick up everything between 80 and 75)

Thanks to Cornflakes, Victor, and everyone else who offered criticism while I was working on it. Everything is mine but for the background. There's a lot I'd like to fix but I'm understandably short on time.

And here's the first chapter. (At Katorone's suggestion, I'm only posting one so the judges don't have to force themselves to sit through any more than necessary.)

Small Choices

As Hraden stared into the depths, he imagined he felt a chill wind steal over him, raising goosebumps on his skin and sending shivers down his spine. It was a strange turn of phrase, not merely because there was no wind in space, but also because the air cooling systems in his old, decrepit ship had barely ever functioned. All the same, the expression seemed accurate - especially to someone like him, who had never set foot upon a planet's surface, and never felt a breeze at all. He hunched forwards and drew his jacket just a little closer to his neck as he stared out his cockpit's center window, into the darkness of the asteroid's hollow center.Why would an asteroid have a hollow center to begin with? he wondered. The miner, on edge as he was, began carefully examining the walls of the shallow shaft he'd uncovered. They lacked the smooth curves oft created by a miner's energetic transfer beam - rather, it looked as if it had been blasted out, or perhaps even mined by hand. But who would spend the time to mine an asteroid by hand?
And most importantly... who would hide two dozen human corpses inside after doing so?

What if?... What if "Limit theory" was not fiction rooted presumably on an idealized enlightened world far away, and not in another time?
What if Limit Theory was our world, now? How could this be?
Imagine that Nikola Tesla had benefited the world with scientific accomplishments. That T.T.Brown really had developed electrogravitic technology. It is not the early 1900's any longer, it is now after the year 2000; Where would we be?
***********************************************************
A fiction about GRAVITY TECHNOLOGY for Limit theory.
Okay, imagine a Light emitting diode (L.E.D.) a tiny electronic component that works like a light bulb. Keep this in mind as I take you on this little tour.
**********************
LESSON ONE: Fundamental Force Coupling - There are fundamental forces in physics; for this topic we discuss only two. Electromagnetic force (EM) is 1X10^42 stronger than Gravity (G). There are theories that imply, show, and prove conversion of one force into another. The tiny electronic part if it can convert a portion of EM force into G (*even at a greatly reduced efficiency than a ratio of1x10^42), you would get a rather astonishing effect! instead of requiring a Jupiter sized amount of negative mass energy to generate a "sloppy" warp field a Gravity Wave Projector drive can generate a warp bubble without negative mass energy. Gravity wave projector technology does not generate true gravitons, the effect is more so a bending of space akin to gravity or anti-gravity effects. As "True Gravity" is a property of mass, Gravity Wave projectors become less efficient in the presence of "true Gravity".

Grade school question: Why build starships with Gravity technology? the answer is that magnetism affects only magnetic materials while Gravity affects everything that has mass.

Rendered using Vue 2015. All assets modelled and textured by yours truly (shamefully using many build-in textures, of course. And you may recognise the mining ship ).
For those who like using more bits, there is a high def version.

Last minute? Heck yeah! At least I got mine done at all...
Here's a prettypants dropbox link to download the game: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2m3f6hcp990s ... lSlMa?dl=0
I have no idea if the Mac and Linux versions will work at all. The windows one was tested though.
Prepare for the most hideous main menu you've ever seen in your life! Also prepare for the most gorgeous particle systems you have ever seen! Shows you where my area of expertise is, I guess.
BTW, I hope the awesomeness that happens when you die isn't so much that people deliberately die just to see the boom...
Good luck to anyone else who can make an entry in less than one hour!

Tal, I'm crossing my fingers in the hope that this will actually run on your despicable half-baked excuse for a *bleep* laptop.

I actually posted an entry for a then-future competition with topic "commerce" in January 2015. I spent a nice amount of work on it... so if it is acceptable, I would like to officially enter it in this competition. Just tell me if not eligible...

In first.
Attaching as a .pdf, since the forum doesn't like indented paragraphs and formatting stuff like that.

Presenting: Upgrade!

--IronDuke

Upgrade

By IronDuke

Mark finally had enough cash to purchase a new ship. His old piece of trash was barely enough to pay the bills, let alone make a profit. Those special runs he had done definitely helped though. Now he was browsing the selection of ships at the shipyard, looking for something of a trader/fighter combined, with a little snazzy attitude, and the ability to do other jobs fairly well if he felt like it.
None of the ships quite fit the bill, however. He tapped the “Request assistance” button on the screen, and waggled his head side to side as the computer voice burbled cheerily, “Please wait for assistance” like a 21st century grocery self-checkout. After a couple minutes of foot-tapping, a man about five feet nine inches, glided around the corner. It took Mark a moment to realize he was gliding on a hoverboard, which made the pilot a little jealous. It also meant the man was actually a little shorter than he looked.
“How may I help you, sir?”
Mark pointed to the screen. “Howdy, I want to try the custom ship generator, but it says it needs someone to unlock it.”
The man nodded as he glided next to the terminal. “Ah, yes, that policy was instituted about nine months ago. Some crankster entered too many contradictory parameters and nearly destroyed the shipyard. What kind of ship were you wanting?”
Mark swiped a few ships past. “A fighting and trading ship that has the ability to do at least decently any other job I try."

It never gets old.
I focus on the crosshairs on the HUD.
Line those suckers up, db.
Chimes and pings go off as other ships chug by on their mapped trajectories.
A flash of light blinds my peripheral vision. Flames from a chimney exhaust.. Diablo's diner.. best flambéed food on this rock.

My vision returns and I quickly scan the vids.
Everyone on their paths. All good.
We approach the maw of space. As we exit the 'roid, it opens wide, until it envelops us.
Wide-reaching, like nothing one would see on earth.. sheer blackness above, below.. all around. One could go mad drifting in deep space.

Flipping switches, and sending transcoded messages to the conning tower.

This is my first time ever entering into a writing thing. I'm excited! Also, I would love some feedback if anyone cares to read through my sauce.

‘A lost life needs to be had first.’ she always said.

You’d think that meant something hopeful: a call to live life to the fullest or something like that.

Not even close.

She was a cold woman, who followed her instincts like they were some tick tock rule book, telling her who to love, tick, and who to hate, tock, where to go, tick, and what to do, tock, until the infinite potentialities of her life were nothing more than mechanical clicks down a set path round the circular clock of life.

She was like a machine, and not on accident. To herself, she was just another part of the endless biological automation, an infinitely unimportant cog in the steamworks, slowly contributing to the self-important needs of evolved instinct. Anything and everything was on limits that could make her genetic progeny safe and successful. She would kill, she would claw, she would run and insult, destroy and create for herself and her children. All a part of her endless automation.

I’m different. And the same.

I see things beyond the instinct. There is something to behold there, is there not?

I care for my friends, though they share no genetic history with me. I care for my business, though I have no children to inherit my wealth. I kill and claw and run and insult, destroy and create.

The hulking mass of metal and rock floated serenely through space. It wasn’t as old as its comrades outsystem, but it was ancient nonetheless. A collection of strangely angular shapes dotted one side, the edges still shining in the sunlight despite the aeons of dust bombardment. The anomalous asteroid rotated slowly, pointing the inexplicable metallic face first into deep space, then directly at the primary, and now at a planet.

The planet, just as old as it should be, occupied the second spot out from the primary. It had seen life in its deep past, but none of it remained. The surface itself was largely molten, the atmosphere charged with noxious vapors. Debris like the young asteroid spoke whisperingly about an ancient moon where none remained.

The asteroid’s odd angles turned away from the planet, once more looking outwards into the stars. This was to be its last trip around the sun. It could not return home; its home was scattered across the skies like a miniature asteroid belt. However, it did the next best thing, approaching its ancient parent body. The asteroid faced the star.

The star was not remarkable. A small, sullen specimen, it had burned for billions of years and would burn for billions more. Its diminutive size implied it would have a long life. The star had seen wonders. It watched the life of the second planet flourish from nothing. It had witnessed the wonders of the first orbit, the struggles to survive upon the surface and amongst the caves of the long-gone moon.

((the planet in the images is self made, the astroid is a modified picture I found on the internet of a real astroid and the station is a modified version of an image from LT, all the rest on the pictures is self made))

I did music again. This time, luckily, I had more time to put into it, so I'm quite happy with the result this time around.
Of course, the theme is a tad hard for music, but I think I managed. I tried to illustrate the evolution of a star system in music: start as a gas cloud, slow accretion, star forming and planets, life springing up and colonising the system, the system being torn apart by war, slowly rebuilding to its former glory, after which everything gets wiped out by a supernova.
Of course, you might not hear any of this in it, but hey, that's how music works, nothing I can do about that...

The entry is a musical piece composed for the purpose of this competition with a straightforward "storyline" in mind.
The first "spoiler" contains a link to the music only, for those who wants to figure out by themselves:Music file (m4a, 7.6Mb)

Because I assume nobody, while listening, will actually get the story I had in mind, there is a graphical illustration of the music in a movie using a 3D render.
The second "spoiler" contains a link to the movie on youtube and is my official entry to the competition.https://youtu.be/EhW0-tjbpzM

In CE 3183 a small survey ship exploring the Gamma Microscopii system found what was perhaps the most important discovery of the 32nd century. The discovery overshadowed every alien artefact that had been discovered before and after, lead to the eventual formation of the Soterian Archaeological Institute and several technological advances, including phased particle beams, HQ-QE1 communications and, most importantly, the singularity drive system. As with previous articles, we have included excerpts from the logs of those present and pictures taken at the time.

Skiron is an almost entirely unremarkable world, orbiting Gamma Microscopii at a radius of 2.18 Astronomical Units. Simply put, it is roughly analogous to Mars in our own home system. It is dry, dusty and inhospitable, a marginal colonisation prospect at best. Terraforming is not considered to be a viable prospect, especially given its sunward counterpart, Soteria, is already terraformed to within 99% of Earth norms. Originally surveyed in 2613 after the RELSP-X Ryker II jumpdrive2 was finally made available to civilian explorers, Skiron was observed briefly, given a footnote in the history books then overshadowed for the next 6 centuries by its more bountiful neighbour.

The lights are flickering and dim, the gravity is off, and the air tastes funny. I think half the ship is depressurized. The ship's drive is dead, the thrusters are dead, the main reactor is dead, the backup reactor is dying, weapons are long since dead, the comms are dead...
Soon, I will be too.
Before I die, though, I'm going to tell you all the crazy crap that's happened. Yes, you. I know you're just an audio recorder, but maybe you'll have someone to tell it to yourself. Maybe they'll even listen to the whole thing.

About three weeks ago (I think), I got my paycheck. I dropped a few percent of it into my "new ship" balance, as I do with every paycheck. That's nothing new. What was new, however, was the mail I got a few moments later.

a single photonic pulse.
it all starts with a single photonic pulse. travelling down a photonic conduit towards an innocuous control node.
the pulse cascades through the node, multiplying, spreading, racing towards sensor clusters.
sensors gripping outwards into the fabric of space, testing it, probing it, extracting information.

more photonic pulses.
slotting numbers into prepared formulas, estoteric methods being applied on the results, methods long beyond human understanding.
interpreting, refining, distilling the data to ever higher degrees.
distilling out ways to bend reality to their master's will.

A group of ten shuttles floated at the assembly point over Mizar 4. Lightning storms lit up the planets atmosphere, the flashes highlighting the mountainous terrain. Cadet Maria Espinosa stared out of the window, wondering when the exercise was about to start.

Across the shuttles cramped cockpit, Cadet Michael St. Claire fidgeted, bouncing a ball off the ceramsteel hull. The thudding noises had been irritating after five minutes, now after forty five minutes they were infuriating.

"Emperor's balls, could you stop that!" Espinosa shouted, throwing a nutrient bar at St. Claire's head. He laughed and ducked, the nutrient bar bouncing off the hull and floating towards the ceiling. The bouncing ball didn't miss a beat. Cadet Douglas' Merryweather's earnest face popped out from a hatch on the floor.

A good story, with lots of great details and very true to the Limit Theory universe. However, it was quite short, and some points were deducted for poor grammar.

Short paragraphs and some bad grammer took away from my reading experience. That been said, I would love it if you continue writing these kinds of stories.

Short and simple, not great but not bad either. The idea that it was a religious faction intrigued me though, I wish you had gone into a little more length.

Short and sweet. The story painted a very vivid picture of what was going on. Enough detail to get the feeling of what was happening, but enough left out to really let your imagination run wild. I like it.

Catsu - The Hunt

I like the way this story serves as a companion to Catsu's other entry. Still, the grammar and spelling lets down the wonderful story by spoiling the immersion factor somewhat.

Short but sweet. I'm eager to see your future entries and how your storytelling and style evolves.

I liked this story more than the other one, it had a good suspenseful buildup to it, but just having a “mission complete” was a bit anticlimactic.

Unfortunately, because of reading A Pirate's Story prior to this entry (both in the thread and for judging) this story comes off as a little unpolished. Still decent, but it feels more like the appetizer to the previous story's main course in terms of content, feel, and vision.

Talvieno - Small Choices

A fantastic start to your book. I'm now among those waiting anxiously for new chapters.

A first chapter to an epos. Magnificient work. And you included a PDF!

Absolutely Fantastic! You really do have a firm grip on the writer’s craft. I assure you, I will be reading the rest of your story too!

Absolutely amazing. After judging is complete, I will be reading the rest of what's out there. I really don't have anything else to say.

Echo - Echo's entry

I really enjoyed this entry - I feel like it really captured the exploration theme of this month's contest.

A Bay-esque interpretation of exploration. Very well done. I was missing some details in this entry, but they might have been obfuscated by the saturation.

I liked it, was a bit on the empty side though, I hope exploration has more action and excitement than that. It was pretty though

I can tell that a lot of hard work went into this. The music doesn't seem to fit the style of video, but none-the-less it still feels epic.

Shuul - Captain watching

Shuul is a truly gifted artist, and it shows in this piece. A beautiful aesthetic reminiscent of a scene from Mass Effect.

The shadows really make this drawing something special.

I don’t have the slightest idea what that anomaly is, so it’s an enigma as well as an anomaly But whatever it is, it makes me want to find out!

I liked this one too. The attention to detail on the lighting is magnificent. This really does give the feeling of 'What did I just find'?

CSE - Untitled entry

I love the idea of the alien planetary zoo, and the image captures it perfectly. I found it hard to make out details of the city itself in some places, but overall this is one of my favourite entries.

Amazing vista. At first glance it's hard to make out what I'm seeing, but after a while it all clicks into place.

Very Interesting concept, I would love to see something like this on colonies. I find the way it’s rendered a bit jarring, but I can see a lot of time and effort was put into all the details, very nice.

I'm completely blown away by the level of detail on this. This is a really great example of enough detail to provide a stunning aesthetic that really has me wanting to zoom in on a higher resolution version of this. Absolutely gorgeous.

Lum - Beyond

A stunning starscape. If it weren't for all the planets, I could almost see this being mistaken for a Limit Theory screenshot.

I'd put this as my desktop background. It has nebulea, planetary rings and spaceships! In this picture I'm missing an indication what the ships are doing out there.

Very pretty, but I don't really get any feeling of exploration, I wish you had something more than just ships with a pretty backdrop which could convey something more than just spaceships are zipping through space.

Another great quality work with great detail. If I had only one complaint, it would be the fact that it doesn't feel very original. But, the details really work to pull that back together so that it still looks great.

Bfett - Vertfield

High points for LT-verse realism. However, I thought the colours could have been more appealing.

This image could have been so much more with some lighter colours and some blending. I applaud your effort for making this, I'm just not in love with it.

It’s not the prettiest of entries, but it is compelling and really gives that feeling of what I think exploring will be like in LT

With all that we've seen regarding a HUD in LT, it feels as though this one is disregarding it quite a bit. Despite that, I feel as though the re-imagining is well done. I know it's still a better interface than if I had tried to make one.

Dinosawer - Into the unknown

I liked the design of the cockpit, and the way that you included HUD elements actually added to the aesthetics of the image rather than distracting from them.

Amazing. You asked for feedback and enhanced your work after receiving some.

Interesting piece, pretty and compelling. You really seem to have put a lot of work into this and it shows. The spherical projection doesn’t quite work out, but thats pretty tough to do by hand, great effort though!

I must admit, I have been growing to really enjoy this art style. Definitely a lot of effort went into this, but somet of the aspects of the struts of the 'fishbowl' really caught my eye and kept me from seeing nothing but beauty. It is definitely difficult trying to get the field of view correctly from a skewed angle when dealing with curves.

HowSerendipitous - Competition Thingy 2

Fantastic Soundtrack! A perfect complement to a great journey of exploration!

Another high quality entry! My only remark would be the sometimes jagged movement of the fighter. In some places it didn't feel smooth or natural.

Another piece of brilliant work. These are great!

Wow. Unfortunately, it just didn't have the same 'oomph' as the first couple entries by HS had to me. Maybe it's because I'm expecting something even more? I'm not sure, but I do know it was incredibly well put together and thought out as well. It just didn't seem to resonate with me this time.

Talvieno - Termang Spacescape

You lose points on originality for simply reworking a LT screenshot. However, you have done some good work on it removing the HUD while preserving the details.

A nice vista I hope to someday encounter in LT, sadly little points for originality. Points for aesthetics and your eye for detail though!

Beautiful, but I am compelled to give it low originality marks in an effort to be fair to the other contestants. LT is stunningly beautiful and nothing could be more realistic to LT than a screenshot, but being honest, it is riding pretty heavily on Josh’s work. Your modifications to the original are impressive though.

Ultimately it's still just a screenshot that's been modified. It fits as a cover of the story well, but on it's own it just doesn't hold its ground.

One of the juries wanted to judge SkyFlighter's video. If anyone knows where to find it, let me know so I can link it in here. A comment about this video can be found lower in this post.

Comments of the jury in order of submission:Just_Ice_au

I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe, very nice.

So many references. I think my head may have exploded. Made me laugh though!

An entry that sums up the community and game in general. I loved it. Great idea to combine so much of the LT fandom, forums, and of course, the creator Josh!

So funny! Had to detract some points for realism, but high scores for originality and X Factor.

Lum

Almost as pretty as the real thing, love the detail.

Crikey. That's a spiffing looking piece o' art.

It is very evident that there was time spent on this. The planet in general with the illuminated cities from the surface as well as the ship greebles provide a great contrast to the rest of the scene.

Very interesting work of art. The only thing stopping me from falling in love with it is some of the colours. I can't pinpoint it, but some colours seem to be clashing. That being said, this creation is something to be proud of, the amount of work that went into the details is very noticeable.

Dark Crescent

Nice, but I can't quite tell what's going on, a battle?

I liked the use o' colour here. Or lack of it, as it were. This picture also benefits from the high resolution version. And the Trade Lanes!

I'm a suck for darker backgrounds and aesthetically, it is incredibly pleasing. However, I'm not quite sure what is going on in the scene.

Love the planet, love the trade lanes, love all the blue! But it's not very clear what's actually happening here.

Talvieno

Very cool, I love all the details and the various spheres of action. A lot of stories going on there.

Nice compositing, yo. I did the foreground a bit busy though. However, I haven't seen a large battle yet and I liked the idea.

Very cool. I think it represents what most fleet commanders hope to get out of LT; huge battles and blowing the crap out of anything that gets close!

Impressive! This is the most massive battle I've ever seen. I wouldn't mind seeing the same setting but a bit more zoomed out. Right now it's a bit too busy for my liking, but I didn't hold that against you.

I noticed myself scrolling down, curious to see what was happening. Funny and well done!

Dinosawer

God, I hope there are supernovas, this would be so intense!

This one is definitely improved by the crazy high resolution. I liked the details of the planet being caught in it it reminded me of photos of the ring nebula. I thought the ship was the weakest point however.

I love the way the style came out looking like it was drawn with pastels with everything having softer edges. This reminds me of Freespace 2's ending. Great scene.

I wish LT would have supernovea, so we could experience this trope in Sci Fi in our favourite game. Great style, great colours. I would have loved a bit more volume in the shockwave, but I think that's personal preference.

Catsu

Same shit, different system... it's a living.

This is quite a subtle one. I like the way it's taken a screen shot and done an entry with minimal fuss.

The only real issue I have with this is that Josh hasn't provided enough ship designs to make this look really interesting. Great job working with what was available though, it worked well.

A high score on the realism, but low score on X factor from me. While I think it's true to the universe of LT, there wasn't much for me to fall in love with.

Slymodi

lolwut?

Oh Sly, Sly, Sly....

Well... it's original. You get TWO whole points on details because you put a couple stars... but then lost most of it when your realism to LT had flaws in your Limit Theories (that and equations don't just float around in space).

Weeeee me gots a flying machine!

DanielW

Wow, that's both a fascinating story and shown so beautifully, well done!

BOOM.

Wow. Just wow. I love the art style. I love how much effort went into this one. Absolutely stunning.

Not much to say really. This entry has it all. Originality, style, eye for detail and I'm loving it!

SkyFlighter

I wish this was an entry. The idea of showcasing the progress of LT really blows my mind when shown back-to-back. If there was any complaint, it felt just a tad bit long, but that's to be expected when there are that many update videos needing to be displayed.

The runner ups are:
- Slymodi with a score of 79.67.
- Lum with a score of 75.67.
- Dinosawer with a score of 75.
- InfelixTumus with a score of 74.
- vfxguy with a score of 72.
- DarkCrescent with a score of 72.67, but 5 points subtracted because of the late submission. Bringing it to 67.67.
- Blunderbus with a score of 67.67.
- N810 with a score of 54.

Comments of the jury in order of submission:N810 :
- "Josh? Star Wars? Photoshop? Embodiment of the LT forums at its finest. Max realism."
- "The picture looks like Josh's head photoshopped on a screenshot. Sadly, minimal effort. This could have been so much more with a few LT references."

Talvieno :
- "It does use a screengrab from LT, and it is very aesthetically pleasing. However, I was debating with myself on whether to utilize the one for 'Soon' as that one was much more realistic to the community."
- "A very nice imagination of being on board a ship watching over operations. Good eye for detail."

Dinosawer :
- "The attention to detail on the planet, mining ships, station, and ships going towards the planet really show a lot of thought and effort."
- "Good eye for detail, and a good looking cartoonish style."

InfelixTurnus :
- "Theory is one of the main things we do here, limitless or otherwise. Anything meta that also discusses the idea of the concept Limit Theory is based on is great."
- "Meta meta meta! While the theory didn't really catch me, I gave a lot of points for originality and aesthetic. Superb writing style."

Lum :
- "A lot of effort was put into it. Plenty of points for the originality of putting it into a GIF and making a trailer."
- "Some timing issues, but all in all a very well executed and enjoyable teaser."

DanielW :
- "Another digital painting with a lot of attention to detail. Everything blends well together and the progression is Amazing."
- "I could easily imagine this as my desktop background. It breathes the LT style and the attention to detail is terrific."

Blunderbus :
- "More theory on the idea of Limit Theory is never a bad thing. An alternative viewpoint to what seems commonly idealized in what Limit Theory is while a hint of Chaos Theory as well. Good stuff."
- "Sadly I had to rate this in comparison with InfelixTurnus' entry."

HowSerendipitous :
- "If we were playing 'Name that tune' I would have guessed it in one note. The only reason this is not a 100 is because I would feel as though it would have been too unfair to compete against it for the other contestants."
- "Wow, just wow. There has to have gone a lot of work in this. While I'm sure some effects or processing could be better, this entry puts the bar high."

vfxguy :
- "A great digital image of a star. The solar flares really show attention to detail."
- "I'm not sure what I'm seeing here. Why is this LT related? Can't really remark the image itself, so still points for that!"

Slymodi :
- "I'm glad there was a short story entry. It showcases an oft overlooked (but great) section of the forums. Great entry."
- "I would have given more points if the story would use more LT descriptions. Highways instead of warp lanes, etc."

DarkCrescent :
- "Brilliant concept. Adapting what could be seen as an everyday scene on a planet (bench under a streetlight) and preserving that in space."
- "With this entry I'm also missing the link to LT. While I can't critique the prettiness of the picture, I'm sad that it doesn't make any allusion to LT."

A good story, with lots of great details and very true to the Limit Theory universe. However, it was quite short, and some points were deducted for poor grammar.

Short paragraphs and some bad grammer took away from my reading experience. That been said, I would love it if you continue writing these kinds of stories.

Short and simple, not great but not bad either. The idea that it was a religious faction intrigued me though, I wish you had gone into a little more length.

Short and sweet. The story painted a very vivid picture of what was going on. Enough detail to get the feeling of what was happening, but enough left out to really let your imagination run wild. I like it.

Catsu - The Hunt

I like the way this story serves as a companion to Catsu's other entry. Still, the grammar and spelling lets down the wonderful story by spoiling the immersion factor somewhat.

Short but sweet. I'm eager to see your future entries and how your storytelling and style evolves.

I liked this story more than the other one, it had a good suspenseful buildup to it, but just having a “mission complete” was a bit anticlimactic.

Unfortunately, because of reading A Pirate's Story prior to this entry (both in the thread and for judging) this story comes off as a little unpolished. Still decent, but it feels more like the appetizer to the previous story's main course in terms of content, feel, and vision.

Talvieno - Small Choices

A fantastic start to your book. I'm now among those waiting anxiously for new chapters.

A first chapter to an epos. Magnificient work. And you included a PDF!

Absolutely Fantastic! You really do have a firm grip on the writer’s craft. I assure you, I will be reading the rest of your story too!

Absolutely amazing. After judging is complete, I will be reading the rest of what's out there. I really don't have anything else to say.

Echo - Echo's entry

I really enjoyed this entry - I feel like it really captured the exploration theme of this month's contest.

A Bay-esque interpretation of exploration. Very well done. I was missing some details in this entry, but they might have been obfuscated by the saturation.

I liked it, was a bit on the empty side though, I hope exploration has more action and excitement than that. It was pretty though

I can tell that a lot of hard work went into this. The music doesn't seem to fit the style of video, but none-the-less it still feels epic.

Shuul - Captain watching

Shuul is a truly gifted artist, and it shows in this piece. A beautiful aesthetic reminiscent of a scene from Mass Effect.

The shadows really make this drawing something special.

I don’t have the slightest idea what that anomaly is, so it’s an enigma as well as an anomaly But whatever it is, it makes me want to find out!

I liked this one too. The attention to detail on the lighting is magnificent. This really does give the feeling of 'What did I just find'?

CSE - Untitled entry

I love the idea of the alien planetary zoo, and the image captures it perfectly. I found it hard to make out details of the city itself in some places, but overall this is one of my favourite entries.

Amazing vista. At first glance it's hard to make out what I'm seeing, but after a while it all clicks into place.

Very Interesting concept, I would love to see something like this on colonies. I find the way it’s rendered a bit jarring, but I can see a lot of time and effort was put into all the details, very nice.

I'm completely blown away by the level of detail on this. This is a really great example of enough detail to provide a stunning aesthetic that really has me wanting to zoom in on a higher resolution version of this. Absolutely gorgeous.

Lum - Beyond

A stunning starscape. If it weren't for all the planets, I could almost see this being mistaken for a Limit Theory screenshot.

I'd put this as my desktop background. It has nebulea, planetary rings and spaceships! In this picture I'm missing an indication what the ships are doing out there.

Very pretty, but I don't really get any feeling of exploration, I wish you had something more than just ships with a pretty backdrop which could convey something more than just spaceships are zipping through space.

Another great quality work with great detail. If I had only one complaint, it would be the fact that it doesn't feel very original. But, the details really work to pull that back together so that it still looks great.

Bfett - Vertfield

High points for LT-verse realism. However, I thought the colours could have been more appealing.

This image could have been so much more with some lighter colours and some blending. I applaud your effort for making this, I'm just not in love with it.

It’s not the prettiest of entries, but it is compelling and really gives that feeling of what I think exploring will be like in LT

With all that we've seen regarding a HUD in LT, it feels as though this one is disregarding it quite a bit. Despite that, I feel as though the re-imagining is well done. I know it's still a better interface than if I had tried to make one.

Dinosawer - Into the unknown

I liked the design of the cockpit, and the way that you included HUD elements actually added to the aesthetics of the image rather than distracting from them.

Amazing. You asked for feedback and enhanced your work after receiving some.

Interesting piece, pretty and compelling. You really seem to have put a lot of work into this and it shows. The spherical projection doesn’t quite work out, but thats pretty tough to do by hand, great effort though!

I must admit, I have been growing to really enjoy this art style. Definitely a lot of effort went into this, but somet of the aspects of the struts of the 'fishbowl' really caught my eye and kept me from seeing nothing but beauty. It is definitely difficult trying to get the field of view correctly from a skewed angle when dealing with curves.

HowSerendipitous - Competition Thingy 2

Fantastic Soundtrack! A perfect complement to a great journey of exploration!

Another high quality entry! My only remark would be the sometimes jagged movement of the fighter. In some places it didn't feel smooth or natural.

Another piece of brilliant work. These are great!

Wow. Unfortunately, it just didn't have the same 'oomph' as the first couple entries by HS had to me. Maybe it's because I'm expecting something even more? I'm not sure, but I do know it was incredibly well put together and thought out as well. It just didn't seem to resonate with me this time.

Talvieno - Termang Spacescape

You lose points on originality for simply reworking a LT screenshot. However, you have done some good work on it removing the HUD while preserving the details.

A nice vista I hope to someday encounter in LT, sadly little points for originality. Points for aesthetics and your eye for detail though!

Beautiful, but I am compelled to give it low originality marks in an effort to be fair to the other contestants. LT is stunningly beautiful and nothing could be more realistic to LT than a screenshot, but being honest, it is riding pretty heavily on Josh’s work. Your modifications to the original are impressive though.

Ultimately it's still just a screenshot that's been modified. It fits as a cover of the story well, but on it's own it just doesn't hold its ground.

Yes, technobabble/lore is valid, as long as Limit Theory is the subject.

It can be anything really. A story of how you envision your own gameplay experiences. Or a vision of how LT's in-game technology and universe came to be.
It can even be a literal story about how Josh created Limit Theory.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

I don't really get it? LT doesn't really have anything concrete to work with exactly. You can make pretty much anything sci-fi and just slap the letters LT on it somewhere. I also think there's also a schism between what people are expecting LT to be and what it will be, which might make these difficult to judge.

That being said there's probably going to be interesting works.

Also is there a reason judges can't submit works? Just don't allow them to vote for their own. A creator shouldn't vote for their own work anyway, their vote was in making it.

I very much hope so! Katawa is right about LT being broad. But we knew that going in.

N810 wrote:More disturbing colages of Josh... LOL

Go for it!

Katawa wrote:I don't really get it? LT doesn't really have anything concrete to work with exactly. You can make pretty much anything sci-fi and just slap the letters LT on it somewhere. I also think there's also a schism between what people are expecting LT to be and what it will be, which might make these difficult to judge.

I think it will be obvious which works were inspired by LT and which weren't. I know not much about LT is written in stone (or concrete) yet, but there's a lot of material already to work with. There's audio and video's of the monthly, there's a lot of footage from the prototype that can be used. There are the dev logs which are inspirational on their own. I wouldn't be surprised if people use these to make a poster or a small teaser trailer.

My inspiration for this contest was the amount of art and stories already on these forums. Take the KSP hype train for example.

I realize that it can be hard to think about LT in an abstract way, because it's not available yet. This is where imagination comes in. This is why 30% of the score is on originality, and only 15% on realism according to LT 'lore'.

Katawa wrote:
Also is there a reason judges can't submit works? Just don't allow them to vote for their own. A creator shouldn't vote for their own work anyway, their vote was in making it.

I agree with that on a basic level. But that would mean that his work would be scored on 100 points less than the work of others... which has implications because of maths.
You could propose to ask for a replacement jury's vote... But then this person's voting wouldn't be consistent with the other votes. So all in all I thought it was easier/better to have jury members not being able to take part.

Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.